Friday, June 20, 2014

Only 28% of
Americans view Walmart unfavorably. I was shocked when I read this statistic.
Holy Kattootie, I thought to myself. Why would anyone not be critical of the
largest employer in America when the low wages it pays costs taxpayers $900,000
each year in subsidies for the employees at each Walmart superstore? The average “associate” at Walmart makes $8.81 an hour — poverty
wage — according to the market-research firm IBISWorld, as of 2011. These poverty-level
wages force thousands of employees to look to food stamps, Medicaid and other
forms of welfare. The various subsidies cost taxpayers more than five thousand
dollars ($5000) per employee. The huge total cost to taxpayers is staggering as
the 1.4 million hard-working employees of Walmart look for help from the
government just to get by. Walmart made $17 billion in profits last year. Executive
compensation for one man at the top of the food chain was more than $20 million
a year, and the six heirs of the founding Walton family are now worth at least
$150 billion.

The up-shot; Working at Walmart may not make one poor,
but it certainly keeps one poor — at the expense of the rest of us. Unless your
last name is Walton!

Saturday, June 7, 2014

There
is a common thread that runs through various national tragedies such as the
massacre of innocent six year olds at Newtown (Yes, it was a tragedy and not
the expression of a demented citizen simply exercising his second
amendment right to carry assault weapons into an elementary school that the N.R.A.’s lobbying wing, the Institute for Legislative Action,
would have us think). This common thread is that most sane, intelligent, sensitive, and rational
people think that certain limits should be in place to protect innocent people
(defined as men, women and children attempting to go about the day-to-day of
living life free from the fear that some a—hole is going walk into a church,
school, hospital to shoot them because the shooter is mad at his mother,
father, former girl friend, ex-employer, or even worse, no one at all) from
being shot to death.

In a perfect example of the inmates running the institution, the Institute did have a lucid moment recently
of demonstrating and supporting the rational thinking that must be brought to
bear on dealing with these increasingly frequent incidents. Recent insane open-carry demonstrations
in Texas, led by the organization Open Carry Texas, provoked a statement on the
Institute's website calling the taking of assault weapons to
lunch at public venues “downright weird” and “downright scary.” That is to say,
we (nearly all of us) took one giant step forward. Think ‘moon landing’ in the realm of public safety.

But, after the “downright
scary and weird” crowd screamed and frothed at the mouth, the Institute removed
the offending statement. Chris W. Cox, the N.R.A.’s chief
lobbyist, explained that the organization “unequivocally” supports open carry
and insisting that it’s “been the leader of open carry efforts across the
country.” The state of Michigan is a good example of these “efforts” which includes
attempts to allow open carry in churches and bars, havens where it is obviously
necessary to demonstrate the size of one’s penis, oops, I mean gun.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

When I was a kid one of the most often-used expressions we
used was the phrase “on purpose.” If I broke a window in the neighborhood with
a baseball, the real issue broke down to whether or not I did it “on purpose.”
If I emptied the cookie jar and did it ‘on purpose’ (how else does one eat more
than their share of cookies?) I would get punished. As a result, we learned to
say “I didn’t do it on purpose” right upfront when the issue of our behavior in
any situation was likely to be raised.

Let me switch topics briefly. I have the continuous
privilege of being associated with a wide variety of remarkable people who, as
the younger set likes to say, are “really into music.” As a prime example, in
the Suncoast Concert Band in Sarasota, Florida I sit next to Bill Millner in
the tuba section. From mid-October to the end of April, the band rehearses
three times every two weeks and plays sixteen concerts each season to
sold-out audiences. By way of an additional example, there’s a guy, Jim
something, in the clarinet section of the band who will be 100 years olds in
the near future. Then there's Joe Bruno, an outstanding trumpet player, in his late
eighties, leads an active and fabulous Dixie-land band and has played for years
with the nation’s finest singers and bands. I could go on-and-on about others as well. In Venice, Millner, 86 years of
age, also leads and conducts the Venice Concert Band through a similar season
of rehearsals and sold-out performances. More than a thousand people flock to monthly concerts and 800 season tickets for next year's concerts sold out in less than a day earlier this spring. In addition, Bill gets huge laughs for
telling some really bad jokes during these concerts. I know they’re bad jokes
because when I repeat them to my friends, I just get blank stares,
and I know it can’t be how I tell them. I do think it is important, however, to
always give the punch line of a joke right up front. But I digress. Notwithstanding
the jokes, Bill is a shining example of a man with a purpose whose age is only
an after thought. I should mention that he also plays frequent gigs professionally.
The word ‘ageless’ comes to mind. Bill and the others represent
the kind of people found in both bands, around sixty really fine musicians
whose lives, in part, are centered around performing good music to appreciative
audiences. And good music it is, for these are pretty darn good musicians. Most
of these band members are retired musicians, or teachers of music: All with the
sense of purpose of maintaining their substantial musical skills for the
pleasure and enjoyment of others.

An article in today’s New York Times talks about how
important a sense of purpose is in senior citizens. The article reports: Patricia Boyle, is a neuropsychologist at the Rush Alzheimer’s
Disease Center in Chicago. She and her colleagues have been tracking two
cohorts of older people living independently in greater Chicago, assessing them
regularly on a variety of physical, psychological and cognitive measures. What
have the scientists learned? Following almost 1,000 people (age 80, on average)
for up to seven years, Dr. Boyle’s team found that the ones with high purpose scores were 2.4 times more
likely to remain free of Alzheimer’s than those with low scores;
they were also less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment, often a
precursor. “It also slowed the rate of cognitive decline by about 30 percent,
which is a lot,” Dr. Boyle added. “Purposeful people were less
likely to develop disabilities . . . those with high purpose had roughly half the mortality
rate of those with low purpose. This protective effect holds through the years.
Those with a sense of purpose “want to feel part of something that extends
beyond themselves.” People with purpose “have a sense of their role in the community
and the broader world.”

To tie this all together, these band members all
accomplish this “purpose on purpose.” To me, it’s as much fun as being a kid
again. Yes, I admit it. I do it "on purpose."